Air blowers, for example, hand-held hair blowers or dryers, typically have a cylindrical nozzle with a central axis for discharging air along the central axis in a mostly linear direction of flow to a limited focused area. This is effective for drying hair, but the air blower by itself is not utilizable for other hair grooming actions such as shaping, providing lift to and styling hair.
Recently, various hand-held hair brush and comb devices have been made available for separate use with hair blowers. Some of these are rounded or ball-shaped, are hollow and have bristles or prongs extending outward from their outer surfaces. The devices have round, or elongated openings or gaps in their outer surfaces. Air discharged from a hair blower held in one hand is directed at the outer surface of the hair brush held in the other hand, such that some air passes around the outer surface of the brush and some air enters the openings or gaps in one side of the brush and may exit through openings or gaps in another portion of the brush. These separately held hair brushes and combs are cumbersome in that they require the use of both hands to brush and manipulate the hair. While such hair brushes break up and distribute the flow of air discharged from the hair blower, air blown into and out of the brush is minimal.
More recently, a hair brush device has been provided for attachment to a hair blower. The attachment device is comprised of an elongated cylindrical metal tube which has holes in its outer surface. Bristles inside the tube extend outward through the openings in the tube's outer surface. Such an attachment device is an improvement over hand-held brushes because it frees-up one of the user's hands for use to manipulate the hair cooperatively with the device attached hair blower. Also, since air flow from the hair blower is discharged directly into the attachment, there is a much greater flow of air into and through the attachment than into and through the hand-held, separate hair brush. However, such attachment hair brushes have had the shortcoming that the air discharged through the holes in their cylindrical wall flows in paths which are radial and perpendicular to the axis of flow from the hair blower and to the axis of flow through the attachment device. This can result in an inefficient or limited use of the discharged air. For example, when hair strands are wrapped around the cylindrical attachment, much of the air so discharged through the holes of the attachment strikes the hair strands perpendicularly to their lie and in limited areas, and passes between the strands into the atmosphere. This tends to cause fly-aways, i.e., hair strands which are driven by the air flow to depart from or fly away from the cylindrical brush. Another shortcoming is that these cylindrical attachments are relatively limited in their capability to provide various hair grooming and styling functions. For example, the size of a curl provided to the hair is basically limited to the uniform diameter of the cylindrical tubular attachment. Also, since most of the air exits the device in radial paths which are perpendicular to the axis of flow through the cylinder, their capability of styling the hair in a variety of waves, flips and shapes and of providing increased lift and volume to the hair is limited.
It would be desirable to provide attachment devices for hair blowers, especially attachment devices having, rounded, or ball-like shapes, which would provide varied hair styling capabilities. However, forming such rounded, ball-like brush or comb attachment devices of metal can be difficult and expensive. Although it would be desirable to form such devices of more easily-formable and less expensive materials such as polymeric or elastomeric materials, the high temperatures of approximately 120.degree. C. generated internally in such devices when attached to hot air hair blowers could soften or melt such materials.
Prior designs of separately held, rounded or ball-type brushes and comb devices made of non-metal materials would not be suitable for attachment devices for hot air hair blowers. Although they have gaps in their surfaces which would allow some air to exit the devices, the gaps were designed for aesthetic purposes and would allow little air to exit the devices. Large quantities of hot air delivered from a hot air hair blower directly into the device could not be exhausted rapidly enough. There would be an excessive build up of internal hot air and internal temperatures which could soften or melt non-metal materials of the device. Even if these devices or attachment devices were made of metal, the excessive buildup of hot air in the device would tend to resist the hair blower's air fan and could cause the hair blower to overheat.
It would be desirable to provide a hair styler attachment device for air blowers, especially hot air hair blowers, which could be made of polymeric or elastomeric materials, to provide rounded or ball-type shapes which would permit the styling of hair with the aforementioned variety of shapes and increased lift and volume, and yet which would rapidly exhaust air and avoid excessive build up internal temperatures in the device.